Wilding the land

We want to wild the land. And that means trees. Lots of them. I have always been drawn to trees.

Woodland Trust (those wonderful people) are taking applications now for grants for the November 2019 to March 2020 planting season.

It’s pretty amazing to me that they will help with up to 60% of the cost of planting mixed, deciduous woodland, as well as providing advice and tree protection. We are going to need all the help we can get as we plan to use around 1.5 hectares of the land for trees, and along with the deer fencing will plant edible hedges around the perimeter of the croft.

Husband is a a total fruit and nut fiend, and is especially taken by the idea of wild fruit and nuts in the hedging – blackberries, sloes, wild strawberries, cloudberries, raspberries, haws and rowan berries. We may even try planting some hazelnuts.

On a recent summer trip to the island we were blown away by the plant diversity of the hedgerows on the lanes in Teangue, just up the road from where our land is. It was like going back in time.

We’d mainly visited the island in winter before. Summer on the island on a calm, sunny day was an experience that took me straight back to my childhood, with bird and insect life in sleepy, buzzy, happy profusion. We want to help protect and build more of that and to grow as much wild, edible fruit as we can.

I’m being a bit premature I know, but I’m already stacking up crabapple jelly and blackberry wine recipes in happy anticipation…☺️

A great aspirational project. Planting trees is a great act of faith in the future and a gift for the next generation or two.
I’m still walking round our croft, looking at our giant hedge and thinking about trees. Maybe ?

This is interesting information. I would love to move to Scotland or other like environs, and I watch a lot of international tv shows/movies…(like this one show set on the Shetlands) and both love locations like that for the ocean but I’m also like “there’s hardly trees” and I thought it was intrinsic to the geographic climate. Good to know trees can fare in places like on the Isle of Skye. Feel free to share more info to educate this (uninformed!) American… loving this blog already!

Hi Willow croft, thank you! Yes, although the island is very windy, which is the main impediment to trees, it’s not natural for it to be completely tree-less. Trees help hold the soil together and build up biomass and provide shelter for other plants, so it’s definitely the right thing to do. We are lucky that we are on the more sheltered southern part of the island which makes life a bit easier ☺️